Reasoning
by Muircheartach
Summary: We all make the choice. We all choose what instrument to play and we have our reasons for it. But sometimes those reasons are different from what they first seem to be. Post-Berceuse, pre-Convergence.


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_Just a tidbit from the Foley family while I'm banging my head against a wall with Berceuse. It sort of popped into my head one day and I liked it, so here you go. Enjoy._

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I didn't do it to be different, that's just how it ended up. I did it because I was afraid of disappointing him. Ever since they emigrated from Ireland to the United States every member of the Foley family has been a musician and every single one of them has played the trumpet. It's really a lot to live up to. I knew that when I made my choice, but living up to just that legacy would have been a lot easier than living up to his.

He was amazing. I knew that even before I knew what it meant to be a great musician. The amount of talent that he possessed surpassed anything that I could have ever hoped for, even with taking lessons from him. I knew that he was great, and in a way it was intimidating. How in the world could I live up to something like that? Even with years of training, how could I possibly even come close to his level?

I couldn't, that was the answer. He had spent years perfecting his technique, years learning every single possible thing you could know about playing the trumpet. He had a doctorate in trumpet performance, played principal trumpet with one of the best orchestras in the country for six years, and had taught some of the best music educators and instrumentalists in the state. I couldn't live up to that legacy, I just couldn't do it.

I really just didn't want to disappoint him. I knew that I could never get to his level, so I tried a different approach. I knew that choosing another instrument would disappoint him, but I could live with that. I could live with that kind of disappointment. Instead of the trumpet, I chose the french horn. It really wasn't a big difference. They were both brass instruments and they were more alike than they were different. Sure, they had slightly different ranges and looked and sounded a bit different, but that didn't matter. By making that choice, I wouldn't be a disappointment.

Some of the fondest memories I have of my childhood are of my father. When Mother was away with the orchestra and Markus and Renée were off at school I used to sit with him while he practiced. I would sit in his lesson room and just listen, just listen to him play. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. It didn't bother him either, at least not that I could tell. It always seemed like he enjoyed it when I sat and listened.

When the decision came around I knew that I couldn't live with disappointing him like that. I knew that I just couldn't do it, so I made the choice. I couldn't ever disappoint him like that if I never gave myself the opportunity to.

* * *

I made my choice because I knew that I was the outsider. I was the first female Foley descendant in seven generations. I knew from the beginning that it would be different for me. They didn't have any expectations for me because they didn't know what to do. Unlike with Drake and Markus who were expected to do exactly as our father had done, I wasn't expected to do anything. In a way, I wasn't really a Foley. First off, I didn't look like a Foley. I didn't look like my dad, unlike Markus who was practically a carbon copy of him. Rather than the light blonde hair that was characteristic of the Foleys, mine was jet black. Instead of being flat as an iron, my hair was wavy. I had deep green eyes instead of the characteristic bright blue. My facial structure was completely different. My face was thinner, with sharper cheek bones and a steeper nose. I had the thin frame and height from my father's family, but the same came from my mother. In appearance I wasn't a Foley, but a Collins. My grandfather noted that all the time when I was a kid. "You don't look like a Foley, girl," he would say. "You look nothing like us. Are you sure she's your daughter, Joshua?" Dad was stutter out that yes, I was a Foley, but it always stuck with me. To them I wasn't a Foley, but rather a Collins. It was like that when I started school, too. "You're Markus Foley's sister?" they'd always ask and I'd always repeat the same answer.

I was a Foley by blood, but in a way I really wasn't. It was the reason why I started acting out, I guess. If I couldn't be accepted as a Foley, I wanted to be accepted as a Collins. I was always much more like my mom than my dad, so I just accepted that it was the way that things were. It's why I made the choice that I did. I wasn't a Foley, so I couldn't really play the trumpet. If I had ever wanted to, they probably wouldn't have let me. That was just how it was. I was an outsider and no matter how much I wanted to be accepted, I never would be.

I used to tell people that I chose to play tuba to be rebellious, that I didn't want to be like every other Foley and play the trumpet. I really just chose it because I didn't know what else to play. If I had been rebellious I would have chosen to play bassoon, percussion, or cello, or if I was feeling like a real rebel I would have chosen not to play an instrument at all and joined choir. I was never rebellious; I just didn't know what else to do. I couldn't play trumpet, and none of the other brass instruments really appealed to me like the tuba did. It didn't appeal to me in the way that you would think. It appealed to me because it was something I could hide behind. When you were sitting behind a tuba no one paid attention to you, they just paid attention to the large hunk of metal that was obscuring most of your body from view. I learned to hide behind it so that people wouldn't pay attention to the fact that I was different from the rest of the Foleys. If I could play well on whatever instrument I chose, I would be fine.

So that's what I did. I just wanted to be accepted. I knew that if I could be a great musician, no one would question it when I said that I was a Foley. They wouldn't look at me like my grandfather did when I was a child and question whether or not I belonged in the family. Instead they would just accept that I was who I was. And that was all that I really wanted.

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I chose trumpet because I wanted to be like him. It was really that simple; there were no hidden reasons why I chose the way I did. I always looked up to him. He was exactly what I wanted to become as a musician- talented, versatile, able to do everything and anything that was asked of him, no matter what it was or how long he had to prepare. I could never imagine myself doing anything else. His abilities surpassed anything I could ever hope for, and I wanted it so much more because of that.

He was what I aspired to become, and learning to play the trumpet was just a way of getting there. He was the only role model that I ever needed, even though I would never admit it. I didn't like saying it because I didn't want to fall into that nice little slot that was the Foley family. Every one of them was the same. They all thought and acted exactly the same, except for him. For some unexplainable reason, he was different from the rest of them. I didn't know how or why, it was just like that. That's what I really wanted to be.

You would have thought that it would be easy to be like him. In appearance we were exactly the same. We were so alike that Mom always used to say that I was like a carbon copy of him- everything was exactly the same. I tried my best, but often times I fell short. It wasn't as easy as it would have first seemed. While I wanted so much to be exactly like him, at times it felt like I was losing a part of myself to get there. Like I would have to give up what made me who I was in order to be just like him. Sometimes that didn't matter, I didn't care about anything else but reaching that goal. But other times I started to second guess myself. Was this what I really wanted? Did I really want to give up what made me who I was in order to be like someone else, no matter whom they were or how much they had accomplished? I struggled over that problem for years, and in the end I lost both of them. I fell into a sort of grey area that was neither myself nor the man I aspired to be.

When I made my decision it didn't matter that I was choosing to play the trumpet. It didn't matter to me what instrument it was. All that mattered was that he played it. And I've never regretted that decision.

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There wasn't any deep, philosophical reason behind it- I just thought it was cool. Really, that's all it was. I chose to play the flute because they got to play all of the cool stuff. Flutter-tonguing, crazy sixteenth note runs, pitch bending- that's what I wanted to do. There was just so much that you could do with that small, silver instrument and I wanted to be the one doing it.

I never had any pressure from my parents to do anything related to music. My family wasn't extremely musical; clunking on the crappy piano in the attic and singing horribly out of tune Christmas songs was about as good as it got in my household. Not that it really mattered. All of that crappy amateur music was what made me want to pursue it. I enjoyed the way I felt when I was playing music with my family. It didn't matter whether or not it was good; all that mattered was that we were doing it together.

My parents were always supportive of my musical ambitions. They were happy when I came bounding home from the first day of music class in fifth grade and told them I wanted to be in band. They supported me all the way through junior and senior high, even when I told them I wanted to be in the marching band and started spending every moment of my free time in the band room at school. They were fine with me learning how to play mellophone and spending my summer vacations touring the country on a bus and sleeping on gym floors. I'm sure they were probably concerned about my sanity at one point or another, but they were always supportive of what I wanted to do with my life. They came to all of the middle school band concerts when I started teaching and they helped me when I decided to audition for the orchestra. Through all of the crazy and difficult decisions that I made, they were there with me every step of the way.

So really there was never any deep meaning why I chose what I did. I did it because I wanted to. I did what I felt was right at the time and I ran with it. That's how I've always chosen to live my life- by the seat of my pants. It doesn't always work for everyone, but nothing ever does. You just have to make your decisions and go with it.

* * *

I just wanted him to like me, that was all. I wanted him to treat me like a father should treat their son, not the way that he treated me growing up. To him I was just an obligation and my mother was a means to an end. He needed to have a son to pass his techniques to and that was all that I was; someone to continue the family tradition.

Even if I had wanted to play something else, he probably wouldn't have let me. I was his son and I was supposed to do what he told me, no matter what it was. He never acted like a father and he never treated me like a son. I was more like a servant to him, someone to do whatever he said without any question. For a while I was okay with that, since it meant that at least he was at least acknowledging that I was there and that I was important in his life. After a while I started to realize that just doing that wasn't enough. I realized that I wasn't important to him; I was only a part of his life because I was necessary. He didn't care about who I was, he only cared that I was there. Because of that I started to question everything. Why was I putting myself through all of his crap if he didn't care about me at all? If I was just there out of necessity for him, then why did I stay?

I left and for so long I tried to escape from his influence. It was difficult stepping away from everything that I knew about myself and who I was. I made a name for myself, and not just because I had the family name. Despite all of those difficulties and all of that hard work, there was still something that pulled me back to him. I still kept a part of him with me because I chose that trumpet. No matter how it seemed, that never really bothered me because there was still a part of me that wanted that relationship with him. No matter what he had done he was still my father and in a way I was okay with everything that it meant.

No matter what happened, I was still that little boy wanting to like my father for who he was and wanting him to like me back.


End file.
